The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-08-10

lunatlc asylum. All his property was
left with the business firm, and they
swamped it; and then the family Of the
insane man were left without a dollar.
In eighteen months the prosperity, the
insanity, the insolvency, and the com
plete domestic ruin. Beside that, there
are men who die solvent, who are insolv-
ent before they get under the ground, or
before their estate is settled up. How
soon the auctioneer's nalet can knock
the life out of an estate. a man thinks
the property is worth SIS, 900; under a
forced sale it brings $1,000. The business
man takes advantage of the crisis and he
compels the widow of his deceased part
ner to sell out to him at a ruinous
prize, or lose all. The stoclI was sup
posed to be very valuable, but it has
been so ''watered" that when the execu-
tor tries TO sell it he is laughed out of
Wall street, or the administrator is Or
dered by the surrogate to wind up the
whole affair. The estate was supposed
at the mans death to be worth $50, 900;
but after the indebtedness had been met,
and the bills Of the doctor, and the under
taker, and the tombstone cutter have been
paid, there is nothing left. That means
the children are to coIae home from school
and go to work. That means the com
plete hardship of the wife, turned out
with nothing but a needle to fight the
great battle of the world Tear down the
lambrequins, close the piano, rip up the
Administer, sell out the wardrobe, and
| let the mother take child in each hand
and trudge out into the desert of the
world. 4 life insurance would have
hindered all that.
But says some one: Il am a man of
small means and can't afford to pay
the premium" That is sometimes a
lawful and a genuine excuse, and there
is no answer to it; but in nine cases out
| Of ten when a man says that, he smokes
up in cigars, and drinks down in wine,
| and expcnds in luxuries enough money
| TO have paid the premium on a life insu-
rance policy which would have kept his
| family from beggary when he is dead.
! A man ought to put himself down ON the
| strictest economy until he can meet this
| Christian necessity. You have no right
| to the lpxuries Of life until you have
| made such provision. l admire what
| was said 10y DIR. Guthrie, the great Scot
| fish preacher. A few years before his
death he stood in a public meeting and
| declared: "When | came to Edinburgh
| the people sometimes laughed at my blue
| stockings, and at my cotton umbrella,
and they said / looked like a common
| plowman, and they derided me be-
| cause lived in a house for which paid
| e35 rent year, and oftentimes | walked
when l would have been very glad to
have a cab; but, gentlemen, l did all
that because l wanted to pay the pre-
| MUM on a life insurance that would
keep my family comfortable if l should
die" That l take to be the right ex-
preston of an honest, intelligent Chris
tan man.
The utter indifference of many people
on this important subject accounts for
much of the crime and pauperism of this
day. Who are these children sweeping
the crossings with broken broom and beg
ging of you penny as you go by? Who
are these lost souls gliding under the gas
light in thin shawls? All, they are the
victims of want; in many of the cases the
forecast of parents and grandparents
might have prohibited it. God only knows
how they struggled to do right. They
prayed until the tears froze on their
checks, they sewed on the sack until
the breaking of the day; but they could
not get enough money to pay the rent;
they could not get enough money to
decently clothe themselves; and one day
in that wretched home the angel of
purity and the angel of crime fought a
great fight between the empty bread tray
and the fireless hearth, and the black
winged angel shrieked: AHA! l have
won the day" Says some man: Il be-
lieve what you say; it is right and Chris
| tan, and | mean sometime to attend to
this matter" My friend, you are going
to lose the comfort of your household
in the same way the sinner loses
heaven, by procTastination. l see all
around me the destitute and suffering
families of parents who meant some day
to attend TO this Christian duty. During
the process of adjournment the man gets
! his feet wet, then comes a chill and de-
Lrium and the doleful shake of the doc
tors head, and the obsequies. If there
be anything more pitiable than a woman
delicately brought up and on her mar
riage day by an indulgent parent given
to a man TO whom she is the chief Joy
and pride of life until the moment of his
death, and then that same woman going
out with helpless children at her back to
struggle for bread in world where
brawny muscle and rugged soul are
necessary say, if there be anything
more pitiable than that, | do not know
what it is. And yet there are good
women who are Indifferent in regard to
their husbands duty in this respect; and
there are those positively hostile, as
though life insurance subjected a man
to some fatality. There is in Brooklyn
today a very poor woman keeping a
small candy shop who vehemently OPP
posed the insurance of her husband S
life, and when application had been made
for policy of $4,000 she frustrated it.
She would never have a document in the
ho' that implied it was possible for her
husband ever to die. One day, in quick
revolution of machinery, his life was in
stantly dashed out. What is the sequel:
She is, with annoying tug, making the half
of a miserable living. Her two children
have been taken away from her in order
that they may be clothed and schooled,
and her life is to be prolonged hard
ship. o, man, before forty eight hours
} have passed away, appear at the desk of
some of our great life insurance COM
panies, have the stethescope of the physi-
clan put 10 your heart and lungs, and by
the seal of some honest company decree
that Your children shall not be subjected
} to the humiliation of financial struggle in
; the days of your demise.
But l must ask the men engaged in
life insurance business whether they feel
the Importance of their trust, and charge
them / must that they need divine grace
to help them in their work. In this day,
when there are so many rivalries in your
line of business, you will be tempted to
overstate the amount of assets and the
extent of the surplus, and you will be
tempted to abuse the franchise of the COM
: pany, and make up the deficits of one
year by adding some of the receipts of
another year; and you will be tempted TO
send out mean, anonymous circulars
derogatory to other companies, forgetful
of the fact that anonymous communica-
ton means only two things: the coward
ice of the author, and the inefficiency of
the police in allowing such thing to be
dated anywhere save inside of peni-
tertiary. Under the mighty pressure
many have gone down, and you viii fol-
low them if you have too much conf
dence in yourself, and do not appeal to
the Lord for positive help. But If any of
you belong to that miscreant class of peo-
pie who, without any financial ability,
organize themselves into what they call
life insurance company, with a pre-
tended capital of 5000. 900 or $500, 900.
then vote yourself into the lucrative
position and then take all the premiums
for yourself. and then, at the approach
of the state superintendent, drop all into
the hands of those life insurance under
takers whose business it is to gather up
the remains of defunct organizations and
bury them in their own vault-then, I
say, you had better get out of the bust
ness, and disgorge the widows houses